


Fireteam Weasel

by NebulaAna



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, During Canon, Gen, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags will be updated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23911057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulaAna/pseuds/NebulaAna
Summary: Ayze awakens in a Cosmodrome in Old Russia with no recollection of who she is, why she's there, or how she got there. She makes it back to the city, meets a few people, and shenanigans ensue. This is Fireteam Weasel.AKA, Nebula is writing a story that follows the campaigns of both Destiny 1, Destiny 2, and all of their expansions.
Kudos: 3





	1. A Guardian Rises

“Guardian?” 

Muffled noises. Talking. Male. 

“Guardian? Eyes up, guardian.”

Ayze looks up, her body aching and head throbbing. She was sitting leaning against the side of a rusty car. 

Wasn’t she just in that car? She  _ has  _ to find Meredith. Maybe- No… Wait- what was she thinking about?

Her eyes land on the small drone floating in front of her. It was talking to her. 

“I’m so glad I found you! You have no idea how long I've been looking for you. I’m a ghost. Well, actually now i’m  _ your  _ ghost”

Ayze looks at her hands, stretching them out. They’re gloved, and suddenly she realises she’s in full combat gear, with a lightweight cape attached to her shoulders that flows down her back.

“And you - you’ve been dead a long time”

_ Dead?  _ She was dead? How was she here?  _ Why  _ was she here?

“You’re going to see a lot of things you won’t understand”

She already doesn’t understand how she got here or why it chose her, but her throat was too sore to speak up and ask. She really needed a drink. Or did she?

A loud rumbling cry sounds from further out, and ghost turns sharply towards it. 

“This is fallen territory. We aren’t safe here. I have to get you to the city. Hold still”

Ghost disappears in a flurry of particles, and she immediately felt a presence somewhere within her mind. She furrows her eyebrows and tries to touch her head only to find it’s been covered with a helmet. 

“Don’t worry - I’m still with you. But we need to move. FAST. We won’t survive long out in the open like this, lets get inside those walls”

Ayze turns her head to the right to look at the huge walls, rusted and decaying similarly to the cars all around her. She starts to move, her joints aching as she attempts to jog. As her leg pain eases up slightly, she starts to move slightly faster, her legs automatically starting to run towards the wall as her mind catches up and remembers the howl of the supposed “fallen” that were close by. 

A group of crows fly away, startled, as she runs through them. Fight or flight. And in her current condition, much like the crows, it’s definitely flight. 

More scratchy howls echo from behind her. She doesn’t bother to look, only wills herself to run faster as she closes in on the wall.

She slows down as she reaches the concrete base of the structure that towers above her. She takes a moment to breathe, leaning against it, before she looks at the small open door that has been ripped off its hinges sometime long before her. 

Once inside, she realises how windy it was out there. The small staircase she was now faced with provided shelter from the winds that chilled her, even through her armour.

“Okay.” That’s right. She had forgotten about the little drone’s presence. “I need to find you a weapon before the fallen get to us.” Ghost says as she reaches the top of the staircase, entering into a room bathed in muted sunlight that filters through the semi-transparent outer wall. 

She jogs across the metal walkway, her feet making a quiet clanging noise with each step. An objective gets displayed in her field of view.

_ Find a Weapon. _

A weapon? She’s not sure she knows how to use one of those.

“Quiet! They’re right above us!”

Ayze slows, making sure her footsteps are quieter and her steps shorter.

The staircase she reaches now is dark and grim. A torchlight appears, she assumes because of Ghost, as she ascends. A radar also appears in her field of view. She assumes she has some kind of display in her helmet that Ghost can control. The radar lights up red as she hears movement above. She decides she doesn’t like that sound - The creaking of metal and scratchy growls, things skittering and moving in the ceiling and walls. She does  _ not  _ want to come in contact with whatever is creating it, but she’s afraid she might not have a choice.

A new name appears on her display.

_ The Breach, _ _   
_ _ Old Russia, Earth _

Old Russia? Oh Ayze had so many questions. 

They reach the top of the next staircase and Ayze heads for the bannister directly ahead of her. She could tell they were in the center of the wall now, and the whole thing was hollow, with walkways above, below, and crossing over the middle. Ghost re-materialises and floats up, letting out a light source as he floats.

“Hang on a moment. Fallen thrive in the dark, but we won’t. We need more light”

Ayze looks around her. But aside from the small amount emitting from her new little robot-friend, she couldn’t see anything because of the black of her surroundings. 

“I’ll see what I can do” Ghost floats off, and Ayze wants to tell him to be safe, but her throat aches for some form of liquid. Instead, she follows his shiny shell with her eyes, being careful of where she walks as she moves down the platform slightly. She doesn’t want to put her foot on a slightly loose piece of platform and be sent plummeting to her death. She hears Ghost groan.

“Another one of those hardened military systems and a few centuries of entropy working against me”

A few  _ centuries?  _

Suddenly there’s the crackle of electricity, alongside a few disgruntled growls from whatever creatures that were lurking in the dark. She jumps back from the railing, startled, even more so upon seeing the creatures on a walkway just ahead.

“They’re coming for us!”

Well that’s not reassuring. She turns to a gate that is now lifting as Ghost floats next to it.

“Here! I found a rifle. Grab it!”

Another objective update appears as Ayze warily looks at her radar.

_ Grab The Rifle. _

She spots it leaning against a storage crate and picks it up. She looks it over, seeing an inscription on the side. She struggles to read it under the faint light. Khvostov 7G-02.

“Hope you know how to use that thing…” Ghost says worriedly.

She doesn’t. Except right now, she can’t quite express that thought. But how hard can it be? Point and shoot, right?

_ Fight through the wall _

Yikes. This was happening. There was no other way out of this. 

Ayze walks forwards steadily, trying to fake her confidence in the hopes she’d believe it herself. She holds up the gun, looking down the sights. Surprisingly, it felt natural in her hands. Like it was supposed to be there. 

As she sweeps the now widened corridor, she sees something move ahead. She flinches slightly, training her sights on where it was, but it had already disappeared.

“Eyes forward. Watch your tracker.” Ghost says as a piece of metal grating that covered the roof fell down right in front of her. She lets out a dry-throated squeak as she leaps back, struggling to keep her cool. She wanted to cry right now. She didn’t want to be here. Didn’t ask for this. But she was here and she had to power forward. 

She keeps moving, minding her step and holding her finger over the trigger, ready to fire at any moment. 

As she takes another step towards a more lit up area, two four-armed creatures leap from the side, ambushing her and taking her by surprise. She immediately takes down the smaller one emptying the clip into its red-ish body, and backs off as she reloads, before taking out the slightly taller one before either of them could let off a bullet.

She lets out a shaky breath as she reloads for a second time just before rounding the corner. She just  _ killed  _ two of those things. 

She moves forward once again, turning another corner and entering into a larger corridor. Another one of those little creatures drops down from the ceiling. Out of fear, she swings her arm and punches it square in the face, sending it into the wall to the right of her. There is a sickening crack as it impacts, before dropping to the floor, unconscious and more than likely dead.

Three. 

She powers on.

Slightly more confident in herself, her arms stop trembling, although her fist is now slightly sore. She ignores it, entering a room with multiples of these strange creatures. 

Were these the fallen Ghost mentioned?

They immediately start to shoot, and she stays up on the elevated platform that forms the doorway. Letting off bullet after bullet, her trigger finger gets slightly sore as she takes out the two smaller ones in the back, shooting one a couple of times in the chest, and popping the head clean off the second one. 

Four. Five. 

She jumps down as the next two duck behind cover. Going after the closest one, she rounds the corner and slams his face into the generator he was using as cover.

Six.

Next, the slightly larger one. Her display finally shows this one to be a ‘Vandal’. Alright. She shoots its shoulder, causing it to stumble and give her time to move forward. She continues to shoot until she’s within arms reach, before giving it a whack across the face and then a kick into the piping behind it.

Seven. 

The next walkway beyond the vandal was darker, and there was a shiny white light at the end. She steps out cautiously, expecting an ambush. Nothing comes. 

“There’s more ahead! Keep it up!”

Ayze stretches her neck as she reloads, hearing a satisfying crack. She suddenly becomes aware of the absence of the aches she felt upon being resurrected. Of course they were still there, but she was moving around and stretching muscles that hadn’t been moved in (supposedly) hundreds of years. It felt  _ good.  _ But she was still waiting for the moment she could sit down and maybe have a nap.

She continues to run across the walkway, reaching the light, which was attached to a silver, kit-bashed chest. 

“A loot cache. Let’s see what’s inside!”   
  


A grey shotgun, marked with the words ‘Preacher Mk. 20’. The grip is old and worn, but it would do for now, as long as she found some new gear later on. She jumps carefully down the steps, immediately regretting it as she falls to the ground, her helmet smacking off of the metal floor. She looks up to the corridor to see little red lines going across the path. Two of them, and they seemed to let off a low hum.

“Trip mines!” Ghost exclaims, almost reading her mind “ _ Don’t  _ touch them” 

She creeps carefully underneath them, opting to just leave them be. 

A few more of the small creatures are standing in this corridor. Her display marks them as ‘Dregs’. She shoots one that gets in her way, letting it drop to the ground. One pops up from below her, so she shoots its foot, and as soon as it’s at eye-level, she punches it before focusing on the one in the back.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

She finds a passageway to bypass the next set of trip mines, treading carefully as she moves. She observes that the inside of the wall is just as worn as the outside, all rusted and broken, paint chipping and things falling apart. She spots a strange symbol on the wall as she walks carefully past. Nothing she could place, but also nothing she could ask about, given her current throat problem.

She pulls out the shotgun, and lets off a shot at another dreg that rounds the spray painted pillar. It instantly falls as the shot rings out, much louder than her rifle.

Eleven.

More dregs come from around the corner. They all drop like flies to her thunderous shotgun.

Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.

She reloads, before swapping back to her rifle as she heads down the steps into a much larger room. There are crates and nets and large, heavy, blanket-like fabrics baring that same symbol from before all scattered around the room. More screeching, growling sounds can be heard as she ducks behind cover. 

Ayze goes for a vandal across on the left wall, shooting it down after it gets a few shots in on her. She moves down the steps towards the far end, and faces where she entered, shooting down two dregs and another vandal peeking out from cover. 

Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen.

She heads into their cover, thinking it clear, only to not check her radar and come face to face with another dreg. She knees it into the crate, holding it there as she punches it across the face. Its rebreather comes off, effectively killing it. She drops it to the floor. 

Nineteen. 

She spots another dreg backing away into the space she was just occupying. She chases it, reloading, and immediately shooting it in the knee, then the shoulder, then the head. Its hands go for its neck, but it’s too late, it’s head is gone. 

Twenty.

She looks at it for slightly too long, noticing the lack of blood. In its place is a steaming liquid-like substance. She shudders, and turns just in time to see two more dregs coming up a staircase tucked away in the corner. She runs towards it, getting within a better range for her rifle as she lodges a few bullets into their bodies.

Twenty One. Twenty Two.

Ayze smirks as another dreg and a vandal come up through the same stairwell. She shoots the dreg, then gives two quick punches to the vandal, snapping its neck with the force. 

Twenty Three. Twenty Four. 

She notices her armour has a few singes from the strange bullets the fallen’s guns fire, but she herself doesn’t feel any worse than when she started. She was getting into the swing of things, and dare she admit it but she’s starting to enjoy herself.

She backs up as one more comes from where she came in. Reloading, she ducks behind another crate, before peeking her head up and shooting a few bullets into a dreg.

Twenty Five.

She looks around and checks her radar. Clear.

“The fallen have a tighter hold on this place than I thought. Just a little bit further, let’s hope there’s something left out there.” Ghost mumbles, trailing off.

She steps through a door frame into a fan tunnel. As she walks down, she feels a gust of breeze, and the air coming through her rebreather doesn’t feel stuffy anymore. Her boots step into water, but her feet stay surprisingly dry. 

_ The Divide, _ _   
_ _ Old Russia, Earth. _

“This was an old Cosmodrome. There’s got to be something we can fly out of here” Ghost tells Ayze as she steps outside. 

It’s a mess. No more rusty cars, but broken and rusted buildings instead. There’s even an old tank in the corner to her right, surrounded by leaves and foliage, obviously not going anywhere any time soon.

As she runs forwards, she spots a flare being shot off in the distance. Fallen or human, she didn’t know, but she needed to find out. As she gets underneath a heavy sign that says something in what she can only assume as being dead russian, she hears that scratchy howl that she heard multiple times inside the wall.

That flare was  _ definitely  _ not human.

“Incoming!” Ghost exclaims just as Ayze spots a large flash of light in the sky. She squints, the bright light hurting her eyes.

_ Fight Through The Fallen. _

A large ship drops down out of the flash of light, hovering about 80 metres off the ground. A few Fallen drop out of compartments embedded into the underside of the odd-looking ship. 

“Fallen ships?! This close to the surface? Move!”

She drops down into the area they’re falling into, and looks down her rifle’s sights just as the fallen drop onto the floor. She takes out the first to land. A vandal. Then a dreg to it’s left. 

Twenty Six. Twenty Seven. 

The other dregs get a few shots in on her so she backs off as one hits probably the only bit of open air skin she has. She sucks in air, wincing at the pain it causes in her throat and on her neck. She refocuses and takes the two attackers out, reloading as she comes back around out of the cover of the small box.

Twenty Eight. Twenty Nine.

She aims down her sights again as two more fallen ships drop down below the clouds, attempting to shoot at the last dreg before anything else appears out of the new arrivals. Due to the shaking from the ships, she empties her clip half into the air, half into the body of the dreg, making it drop to the ground as she reloads again.

Thirty.

More shots hit her body and she grunts slightly, but shoots at the closest dreg, then without stopping, continues to fire at the one directly behind it.

Thirty One. Thirty Two.

She looks around, hearing shots but not seeing enemies until she creeps around a mound of snow. 

Takes a few extra shots to take out the next vandal, and she has ten left in her magazine. Uses another five on a crouched dreg. 

Thirty Three. Thirty Four.

She reloads and continues to move forward. Two more dregs attempt to jump her, but she’s ready.

Six bullets into the first, eight into the second, and they fall swiftly to the floor. Ayze grins under her mask, flexing her fingers against the grips of her rifle.

Thirty Five. Thirty Six. 

Oh, how she’s loving this. She’s getting more comfortable with the rifle, and is ready for the next lot of enemies. 

She’s in luck. Four small but bulky drones come out from her target building. ‘Shanks’ they’re labelled as. She swaps to her shotgun and shoots them down with ease, two at a time.

Thirty Eight. Forty. 

As she walks under the half-closed garage door, she shoots a couple of dregs, the shells embedding into their skin and knocking them backwards, onto the floor.

Forty Two. 

She reloads. 

“I’m picking up signs of an old jumpship. It could be our ticket out of here” Ghost says, and Ayze’s heart flutters with hope. 

She spots a large, open crate to her left. She approaches it and peers inside. Ammo, an old knife, and a couple of grenades. Jackpot!

She gathers the resources up, and attaches the knife to her thigh for quick access. The grenades hang dangerously from her belt, but at the moment she doesn’t really care.

_ Find the ship _

She creeps through the building, sweeping different rooms that are all surprisingly empty. 

_ Dock 13, _

_ Old Russia, Earth. _

She’ll admit, this place gives her shivers. It was mostly dark in the wall, but the inside of this building is bathed in a dim orange glow from strange stick-like light sources planted in the ground. 

She peers through the window that looks into the next room, and sees two dregs and a vandal that haven’t spotted her yet. She  _ could  _ do this stealthily. Or…

  
She rounds the corner, firing wildly at the two dregs. They fall to the floor, writhing in pain. She steps over them, and shoves her new-but-actually-old knife into the vandal’s neck. She twists, and removes it as the vandal drops to the floor. 

Forty Five.

Before she can think, she is faced with another set of two dregs and a vandal. She knocks down the vandal first, and then one of the dregs straight after with her rifle, then heads in the doorway they came from, stabbing the still weird-substance-covered knife into the dreg. 

Forty eight.

As she reloads, she walks into the next room. Sure enough, there’s a jumpship, suspended from the extremely broken ceiling by cables and rope. There are fallen sitting on top of it, who all jump down, ready and prepared to fight her, not knowing about the carnage she just caused to their forty eight other friends. 

“There’s the ship! Clear them out!”

Gladly. 

Ayze looks down her sights again to focus on a larger fallen. Her display tags him as ‘Rahn, Devil Captain’

Devil captain? What?

She shakes her head in confusion, and throws one of her grenades out. It explodes, causing parts of the captain’s clothing to catch fire. It hisses, backing away as Ayze rains down a storm of bullets upon him. His blue-tinged shield falls, and while he staggers, Ayze runs up and shoots a shell into his face, quickly swapping back to her rifle to take care of some of the surrounding dregs as the captain drops. 

Fifty Three.

As more keep appearing, she keeps firing, reloading every few kills. Two shanks and two dregs. Dead.

Fifty seven.

She backs off behind a pillar as she checks her radar. The coast seems clear and the area is oddly silent compared to the barrage of gunfire that just thundered around the nearby valley.

“Alright. Let me see if I can get us out of here” 

Ayze holsters her weapons as she follows Ghost up to the ship.

“It’s been here a while… Hasn’t made a jump in centuries.” Ghost flies closer, letting out a beam of blue light, shining it on the ship. “We’re lucky the fallen haven’t completely picked it clean.”

Ayze feels bad about Ghost just talking to himself all this time. She tries to muster up the ability to speak. 

“Will it fly?” She gets out, her voice surprisingly smooth for what she feels for saying that. Ghost flicks his little… eye? Towards Ayze in surprise. 

“I can make it work”

Ghost disappears inside the ship, and a loud creaking noise can be heard as it fires up, lifting slightly off the ground. A few lights on the outside flicker on, and the noise of fans starting to whirr fills the area. The boosters let out a blast of hot air, and dust begins to kick upwards as the ship gets released from its cables holding it down. Ayze takes a step back. 

“Okay. It’s not going to break orbit, but it just might get us to the city. Now… About that transmat…” 

Ayze looks behind her to see more fallen pouring out through a pipe. She feels fuzzy, and closes her eyes against a bright light that appears directly in her vision. She’s suddenly transported away as the ship rises up through the ceiling. 

  
She feels violently ill as her body is jolted backwards into the back of a chair. As she opens her eyes, she sees the fallen soundlessly screech up at her. 

“We can come back for them when you’re ready. For now, let’s get you home”

Ayze settles on the chair, attempting to pay attention to their surroundings. She soon finds herself slowly falling asleep, her head lowering to rest on her shoulder as they fly over barren deserts and forests. 


	2. The Last City

Ayze feels the nausea again when Ghost transmats her out of her jumpship. She had awoken from her nap feeling considerably better, and had spent the last few minutes watching the rolling hills and forests as they neared the city. She was in  _ awe.  _ The city looked glorious, and she had never seen anything like the traveller before. Or at least, she  _ thinks  _ she’d never seen anything like it.

They’ve landed in a courtyard atop a wall that surrounds the whole city. It’s mostly empty, save for a few other guardians milling around. Ayze feels the fresh air against her face, Ghost must’ve taken her helmet off in the transmat.

“Welcome to the last safe city on earth. The only place the traveller can still protect. It took centuries to build, and now we’re counting every day it stands. This tower is where the guardians live”

At her Ghost’s guidance, she heads down the staircase in the centre of the courtyard to find her “vanguard leader” as he put it. Cayde-6. 

The stairs lead into a long corridor, which then opens into a large hall with a big oval meeting table in the centre. There are three figures standing around it, one on the left, one on the right, and one at the head. Ghost nudges her towards the man on the left, an Exo with a peculiar blue horn on his head. He looks up when he sees them approach.

“Hey! Your ghost told me you were comin’! What’s your name, guardian?”   
  


She  _ panics.  _ What  _ is  _ her name? She doesn’t have one. Her mind runs into overdrive as she thinks of one. A and Z resonated with her for some reason. Az? No, not quite. Maybe Ayz? Ayze?

“Ayze” She manages. Since her nap, her voice definitely improved. 

“Well  _ Ayze,  _ welcome to the fight! Here’s your personal starter kit, containing some new armour and a pile of glimmer! Maybe go swing by Banshee-44, the resident gunsmith while you’re here, I’m sure your ghost’ll tell you where to go.” He says cheerfully. 

He’s awfully upbeat and charismatic. Ayze could see herself getting along with him.

“Oh! And here!” He moves over to the shelving unit behind him, pulling a small key fob from a box. “This is a key for your room in the South West Barracks. Room Two-Two-Six. It’s a dual room so you’ll have a roommate, but he’s pretty nice! I’m sure you’ll get along fine.”

Well that’s reassuring. She thanks him anyway, to which he bids her a farewell, and she leaves, taking her new stuff out to the courtyard. It’s midday and she’s not really sure what to do now. Cayde suggested speaking to Banshee the gunsmith, so maybe she should go there. 

When she gets outside again, Ghost guides her to the left, and she approaches another Exo who stands behind a table on a stall strewn with guns and crates. Ayze hesitates.

“Uh, hi there! Cayde-6 sent me to talk to you, he said you would have some weapons for me?”

The exo looks up 

“You new here?” He grunts.

Ayze nods. He places a few guns on the table. She has no idea what any of these are. Different guns of shapes and sizes, all in the same white/black colour scheme. She picks the first one.

“Good choice”

_ Marshal-A  _ is engraved on the side. She nods, thanking the gunsmith as she weighs the rifle in her hand before slinging it onto her back.

  
“We should go see Amanda Holliday too, she’ll be able to help us with our ship.”

She follows her ghost’s directions that lead her into a large, open hangar. It’s not as light as everywhere else she’d been today, but her eyes are thankful for the shade. Going up some steps, she is greeted immediately by a blonde haired woman with a prosthetic leg.

“Well you’re here fast! Your ship did well in performance tests, but it’ll need a new drive. Think you can find one out in the wilds? It’ll be expensive to just buy one outright” The woman (presumably Amanda) asks in a heavy accent.

Ayze nods cautiously, not really understanding any of what was said. Amanda smiles warmly at her.

  
“Great!” She exclaims “Just come back to me when you’re ready for it to be fitted”

Ayze stares blankly for just a second longer, her brain still processing what she should be doing. She nods, giving a small smile, before scurrying away again. 

“Maybe we should find out where our room is. Cayde said South West, right? Well we’re in North East right now, so we’ll have to go across the city... “

Ayze tunes Ghost out as he rambles, only paying attention to him when he gives directions. She marvels at the large buildings and the pretty flowers decorating people’s windowsills. They take a tram to get across the city (which they discover is free for any guardian with a ghost), being met with a mixture of bright smiles and suspicious stares. Ghost explains this is because Guardians have a rather… mixed reputation, to put it lightly.

**\----------------**

Ayze eventually finds her dorm. The Hunters section, second floor (out of four), number 226. Cayde-6 had mentioned it was a dual room, so she’d be sharing, and if she was to be completely honest, she’s kind of nervous.

So far she has had minimal interaction with anyone aside from her ghost, so walking down the corridors hoping she doesn’t get lost was just that little bit more daunting. It was hot in the building, and many rooms had doors propped open either fully or just a fraction to let air circulate. In turn, this meant Ayze could see into rooms. Some were inhabited, Hunters moving around within them, but many were just quiet. She was unsure if they had really just left with their doors open, or whether they were inside and just not moving. She was not about to go and check.

But by the time she reached 226, she felt… afraid? No, not quite. Nervous, maybe. She knocks before she keys the pad to the side of the door. It beeps and she pushes down on the handle, the door squeaking slightly as she opens it. The weight of it takes her by surprise, she would  _ not  _ like to get herself caught in that, and if the dried red stain on the edge of the door was anything to go by, she would not be the first if she  _ did  _ get caught.

The first thing she spots is the grey-haired awoken on one of the beds. He’s staring back at her in surprise with piercing blue eyes, a half-sharpened knife in his hands. She is slightly intimidated.

“Oh…” is all he can seem to muster at first, his eyes shifting to stare at something taped to his wall briefly, then back up to her as he puts the knife away on a shelf “You must be the new guardian I was told would be sharing the room with me. Cayde-6 sent you, right?”

“Yeah he did. And I think I am your roommate, this  _ is  _ room two-two-six.” She shows the key fob, marked with ‘226’ on the grey plastic. The awoken nods. 

She’s still standing in the doorway. There’s a small silence as they look at each other. The awoken suddenly jumps up as if he’s remembered something. 

“Zavier Lumiora, by the way” He says introducing himself properly as he comes over, extending a hand. She shakes it.

“Ayze”

“Ayze huh? You just came in today, right? I didn’t think you’d have a name already. You get rezzed with something on you?” 

She steps properly into the room now, and he makes sure the door is shut properly behind her. 

“That’s your bit by the way” he adds, gesturing to the spare bed and storage area. “Feel free to alter and decorate however you want”

“Thanks” She nods, going over and sitting on the bed while Zavier returns to his. “I uh- Cayde-6 asked me for one. I made it up on the spot. The name, I mean.”

Zavier nods his head, listening intently. “You don’t need to keep saying the number, Cayde is usually just fine. He’s a charmer, real nice guy. Anyway!” he sidetracks “Sometimes that’s the best way to do it. You were under pressure so you chose a name on the fly. Does it feel right, people calling you Ayze?”

Ayze hesitates, trying it out in her head a few times. “I guess…?”

“Then that’s your name. Easy. So how’d you get here?”

“Jumpship. I woke up in a place called the cosmodrome? We found an old ship and flew it here. I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on. I’ve got to go out and find a drive for it, apparently.”

Zavier hums, and when Ayze looks over he’s lying back in his bed, one hand twirling the knife from earlier in the air whilst the other lays behind his head. “It can be pretty overwhelming when you first arrive, but you’ll settle in in no time. It’s about four-thirty in the afternoon, so I would maybe leave finding the drive until tomorrow. You got plans for food tonight?”

It’s at this moment that Ayze realises how hungry she is. And so does Zavier, because her stomach lets out an almost comically loud growl.

“I’ll take that as a no.” He laughs. He may be laughing, but there’s no malice behind it, which puts Ayze at ease slightly. 

“I mean there’s a mess hall here, right?” 

Zavier snorts “yeah but that’s boring. Fine when you’re exhausted from a mission, but it’s better to go out into the city. I’m leaving to meet my Fireteam for food in about an hour if you’d like to come with?”

“...I don’t really think I have the money for it-“

“Ah it’s fine! I can cover it. No big deal. It’ll be fun! You can meet some other guardians, we can show you bits of the city, and we get food! It’s a winning situation no matter how you look at it” He cuts her off.

Ayze sighs. Something tells her he won’t give up easily. She agrees, and an hour later they’re out in the city. 

**\---------------------**

They walk through the streets, idly chatting. Zavier points out shops, vantage points, and the like on their way. Ayze is content to let him talk, eying their Ghosts who are floating just ahead of them, seemingly having their own little conversation.

Soon, they arrive at a small ramen shop. Zavier leads the way, winding through rows of tables and past booths, until he gets to a table already partially full of people. It’s at this point that she realises everyone is in normal, civilian clothes, while she’s in her basic armour and cape (minus the helmet. She’s still not sure where that is, she’ll have to ask Ghost later). There’s two awoken and an Exo, who is sliding a jar of peanut butter between his hands on the table.

“Zavier! Picking up another stray, huh?” one of the awoken say, leaning back against the booth. Her deep purple hair is pulled into a bun, the left side of her head partly shaved. She’s got lipstick and a short sleeved shirt that matches the same striking colour as her hair, the shirt being partially hidden behind her grey dungarees.

“My new roommate! This is Ayze.” Zavier introduces.

Ayze gives a timid wave. The Exo waves enthusiastically back. He’s bright red and black with two little purple antennas on the sides of his head. A black scarf covers part of his neck, sitting over top of a pale blue wrap that looks  _ suspiciously  _ like it might actually be a cape.

“Oh they finally paired you? Only took them twelve years” the other awoken says sarcastically. She looks almost identical to the first awoken, the only differences being their skin colour and their eyes. This awoken’s hair is in a bob cut, tucked behind one ear, and her lips are painted a dark black. She wears a black hoodie with a small purple decal of what looks like mountains over her heart. 

The first awoken laughs lightly. “Well you’re welcome to join us, I’m Loxi, this is my sister Vess, and this Exo over here is Nuggets. Obviously you’ve already met Zavier.” She says, gesturing to each person, then to the empty spots at the table. 

“Cameron not joining us?” Zavier asks, sitting next to nuggets and leaving Ayze to sit next to Vess.

“Nah, said he wanted rest before patrols tomorrow” Loxi explains.

“Sucker” Nuggets says quietly, continuing to pass the jar back and forth between his hands.

They continue talking for a few more minutes before Zavier is volunteered by his friends to go order for everyone. Ayze doesn’t know what she wants, but Zavier says he’ll find something.

As soon as he leaves, Vess, Loxi, and Nuggets look directly at Ayze. She’d been mostly quiet the entire time.

“So, you just get rezzed today?” Vess asks suddenly. Ayze stutters out an answer, caught off guard by the sudden attention. 

“Vess!” Loxi scolds “Don’t  _ scare  _ her!”

“I’m not  _ trying to,  _ I just-”

“-So you got any missions to do or anything?” Nuggets cuts in, ignoring the bickering of the two awoken to his right. “We’re going out tomorrow for scouting and patrols, but you can come with us if you want” 

“Ah, I uh- I think I’ve got to go out and find a new drive for my ship. It’s pretty old, and I don’t think it would get me into orbit.” She says, avoiding eye contact with the yellow-eyed Exo by looking at the collection of Ghosts that are now making a small circle at the opposite end of the table. They all have different shells, interesting shapes and designs, while hers is just a plain white. She feels bad. Maybe she should give him a name too.

Nuggets hums, nodding as he drums his fingers against the side of the jar in his hands. Ayze still isn’t sure why he has it, but she can’t think about it for too long because she’s barraged by questions from Loxi and Vess. Nuggets quietens again, leaning back and returning to passing the jar between his hands, following it with his eyes.

Soon enough their questioning is interrupted by Zavier returning with food. Over the course of the night they share stories and spill rumours, updating each other with news from other fireteams and the city, giving the occasional bit of unconventional advice to the newly-risen hunter, who has affectionately been given the name “Kinderguardian”.

After dinner is over they all talk for a while longer, before saying their goodbyes. It’s dark outside while Zavier, Ayze, and their ghosts head back, the air significantly cooler now. 

**\----------------------**

Back in their shared room, Zavier sets out some gear for the next day before going to bed. He falls asleep semi-quickly, his ghost nestling in an upside-down helmet filled with fabric at the foot of his bed.

Ayze is left lying awake. Zavier let her borrow some sleeping clothes, and her bed is comfy and warm, but she isn’t quite tired enough to sleep yet. She looks around the room. Her own ghost is nestled in her cape, on a shelf in the unit that partially makes up her bed. She can just see the tip of his shell from where she’s laying.

Zavier’s side of the room is well-decorated. There’s photos on the wall his bed is up against, a collection of knives carefully displayed on the spare bit of wall between their two sections, and the square drawers under his bed have bits of coloured fabrics escaping out the small gap at the top. It looked lived in, which her side of the room very much didn’t. Her side of the room was mostly empty, with the exception of her weapons and armour. The units that make up “her” territory are the same as his, just less colourful and decorated. A tall wardrobe unit on the left, bed in the middle with a small shelf embedded into the wall and drawers underneath, a flat surface at the end, and another tall unit on the far right, a mixture of drawers and shelves. It’s all a sleek white colour, and the ground is a hard grey concrete that Zavier obviously tried to soften up a little because there’s a large black rug in the centre of the room. There’s a door off to the left of Ayze’s unit that she assumes leads to a bathroom.

She thinks about all that’s happened today. She wakes up in the middle of a Russian Cosmodrome feeling like she just got run over with no recollection of who she is, how she got there, or why she’s there. There’s a little white drone talking rapidly as it flits about in front of her face, saying something about having to get moving, of which she actually wants to do the opposite and bury herself ten feet under. She starts moving, miraculously starting to feel better, and ends up getting into a firefight with an alien race, killing almost sixty of them just trying to get to a jumpship that can take her to the last city on earth. When she gets there, she meets her over-enthusiastic vanguard, a gunsmith who doesn’t seem to be fully with it, a strongly accented shipwright with a prosthetic, her new awoken roommate, an Exo who put  _ peanut butter  _ onto  _ Ramen  _ during dinner, and two awoken sisters who seemed to make it a competition of who could take the most digs at the other one. She is… overwhelmed, to say the absolute least. Hopefully tomorrow will be simpler. Hopefully all of it from here on out will be simpler. 

But  _ oh how wrong she is. _


End file.
